David King waits for his daughter, Amanda King, to get off a school bus. The Philo High School senior has a bus ride of more than an hour each way. / Trevor Jones/CentralOhio. com

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Reinventing Ohio

This yearlong series will look at ways Ohio could change in the future. Each month will explore an issue or proposal with an in-depth report. Coming in April: A look at whether Ohio has too many elected officials.

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More than 150 school districts across the state have fewer than 1,000 students — 24 have fewer than 500. District lines are a haphazard divider based on historical events with no present-day rationale. Many districts already struggle financially and the potential loss of significant state funding might force school officials to look at operating differently.

In 1900, 2,400 school districts operated across Ohio. In a century, that number had been slashed by 75 percent to 612. But has it contracted enough?

Gov. John Kasich said grant money in his proposed budget is partly intended to help “right-size” schools so less money is spent on administration and more is spent on education.

“Dollars ought to go where kids are,” he said. “Dollars ought not to be targeted to adults or buildings.”

The governor’s own budget provides the carrot in grants for districts to change, but a large stick also looms: Guarantee money. In promising not to cut any school funding in this current budget, Kasich provided $463 million of guarantee money to 394 school districts in the next school year. Although the money props up local budgets temporarily, the governor has made it clear such funding is not sustainable for the long-term.

Such potential budget struggles have begun to raise the question of district consolidation. Many rural districts were asked at the state legislature whether it wouldn’t simply be wise to combine to save costs, eliciting concerns over local control, transportation funding and the true financial value of combining districts.

Given the state of flux in education money, now is the perfect time to ask whether Ohio has too many school districts.

'How in the world are you going to survive?'

More than 100 superintendents and school administrators squeezed into hearing rooms earlier this month to plead their cases to the Ohio legislature when Rep. Matt Lundy, D-Elyria, asked the bluntest of questions.

“How in the world are you going to survive without the guarantee?”

Laughter.

“We don’t (survive). We can’t,” said Thomas Perkins, superintendent of Northern Local in Perry County.

School administrators across the state know losing the guarantee money — $463 million to 394 school districts in the next school year — is not funny. In fact, some see Gov. John Kasich’s budget proposal merely as an effort to divert money to private education or force public schools to look at consolidations or other radical solutions.

“There’s definitely an effort there to force the hand of local districts,” said Dale Dickson, superintendent of Walnut Township and Berne Union schools in Fairfield County. “I wonder if it’s not more about making public schools less successful to get private schools the money.”

Dickson is one of a few school officials in Ohio to lead more than one district.

Kasich and his advisers have said the new funding formula represents today’s reality as districts with declining enrollments or increasing property values will see less help from the state. Given such an economic climate, school officials need to share more services, cut administrative costs and take a hard look at their operations, said Greg Lawson, policy analyst for the conservative Buckeye Institute.

“You’re not going to be able to keep spending more and more on the state level,” he said. “The revenue is just not going to be there.”

Nonguaranteed funds

In announcing his school funding plan, Kasich made clear school guarantee funding is not sustainable.

The budget allocates a base amount of funding per student for each district, based on that district’s property wealth, income levels and student population. Based on that formula, some schools would receive more money in the next school year, but some would get less.

Kasich also promised each district it would not lose money during the next budget, so those schools that would have seen a drop were propped up with money tagged as guarantee funds. The governor called the money political, but said he didn’t strip it completely to avoid chaos for numerous districts.

The money affects each district differently. For example, the budget includes almost $3.9 million in guarantee funds for Northern Local, making up more than 15 percent of its total revenue. At Gibsonburg Exempted Village Schools in Sandusky County, the $1.3 million in guarantee money equals almost 15 percent of its total revenue from 2012. Gibsonburg has lost more than 15 percent of its student population in the past eight years, while Northern Local’s enrollment has remained fairly consistent.

Dick Ross, the governor’s top education adviser, said although there might be some nervousness about the governor’s plan, there is no immediate directive to eliminate the guarantee. Ross, who takes over as state superintendent Monday, said it was mentioned merely to begin a conversation about the topic.

Those words might be meant to be reassuring, but River View Local Schools Superintendent Dalton Summers isn’t buying it.

“That comment from Dick Ross would be contradictory to every comment given to us thus far,” the Coshocton County school administrator said.

Summers’ district is projected to get $2.7 million in guarantee funding next year. To remove such a chunk from his budget would be disastrous, he said, joking that it could be accomplished by closing his high school.

“For me to phase out $2.7 million from my budget is not possible,” he said. “Honestly, it’s almost insulting.”

Consolidation criticism

The difficulty in merging schools was summed up in a joke by Jack Conrath, superintendent in residence with the Superintendents Licensure Program at Ohio State University.

“What’s the most difficult animal to kill?” he asked. “A school mascot.”

The national Brookings Institution and Greater Ohio Policy Center released a report in 2010 calling for a commission to recommend cutting the number of Ohio school districts by a third by creating districts ranging from 2,000 to 2,500 students. More than half of Ohio’s districts have fewer than 2,000 students.

Combining administration efforts would help smaller districts most, according to the report, with Ohio spending 49 percent more than the national average on administration. A separate report by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice notes administrative and nonteaching staff in Ohio increased by 44 percent from 1992 to 2009 while students increased by 2 percent.

Proposals to combine school administrations have gone nowhere, but that might be beginning to change.

During the legislative hearing in which superintendents were asked about their guarantee money, a superintendent of two smaller districts described some of the logistical problems he faces.

“That would be more manageable if you had one district, would it not?” asked Rep. Gerry Stebelton, R-Lancaster.

The response was quick — it could, in theory, but isn’t practical in the real world. School superintendents — especially in rural districts — thought they were being unfairly attacked by the governor’s proposal.

By splitting time between districts along with his treasurer, Dickson said they save $78,000 annually for the schools. Sharing services, however, requires communities to embrace change, he said, although he stressed he did not support blanket consolidation. In fact, he expressed concerns about being quoted in this story.

“Bigger is not better,” he said.

He touted the fact that small districts already have employees sharing roles to increase efficiency: One of his assistant treasurers drives a school bus, and the two districts plan to share a psychologist next year.

Mark Neal, superintendent of Tri-Valley Local Schools in Muskingum County, said rural schools already serve as “prototypes of efficiency” and it seemed the governor’s plan wasn’t accounting for school performance.

Neal and others pointed to transportation challenges facing districts, some that have kids riding buses for three hours per day because of previous consolidations. At least one district in Ottawa County flies its kids to school each day from the islands on Lake Erie.

Others mentioned how consolidations in West Virginia and other states failed to reduce overhead costs. An investigation by the Charleston Gazette found massive school consolidations in the state actually increased the number of local administrators and more money is spent on maintenance and utilities than before consolidation.

Enticing change

Technology — mostly the spread of personal vehicles — spurred many of Ohio’s school consolidations at the turn of the 20th century, and it could be the driver for educational change again.

The Internet, computers and mobile devices give students instant access to information on any topic, let them communicate with people around the world and allow them to be taught subjects without a teacher in the room.

Although colleges and universities long have been offering degree courses online, that has not always been the case with primary and secondary schools. Because of a grant program being pushed by Kasich, that might be changing.

The governor’s budget proposal includes $300 million during two years in competitive grants, dubbed the Straight-A fund. Ross, with the state, described it as money that would allow districts to think about how they would do things differently.

“We’re trying not to solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s solutions,” he said.

In a conference call organized by Kasich’s administration, several superintendents lauded the grant fund as a way to help them enact needed changes. Those included hiring AP teachers to share across districts, creating an open junior-senior high school campus and offering virtual elementary gifted classes to allow students from different schools to interact.

Doug Marrah, superintendent of Ashland City Schools, said the money could help his high school partner with Ashland University to provide more opportunities for his students. This is critical because his district already loses 170 students to online charter schools and public education facilities need to offer attractive options.

“We are no longer in an era when kids have to come to our schools,” he said.

Neal, with Tri-Valley, said he is concerned the governor’s plan has a goal of pushing more students toward online charter schools, which often have lower performance scores than traditional schools.

Chris Burrows, superintendent of Georgetown Village Schools in Brown County, said the money will make a difference.

“Our people with their backs against the wall will have great ideas,” he said. “We’re on the guarantee, and we need to move away from that.”

Lawson, with the Buckeye Institute, said that is exactly the mindset that is needed and why it makes sense to give financial incentives, positive and negative, to act.

“If the money keeps flowing, there’s never going to be an impetus for change,” he said.